2 On Three Senses of 'Term'
On Three Senses of 'Term' pressions, verbs, and other parts of speech lacking a determinate signification); or (3) can be composed of things that are signs of either sort (e.g., propositions).
Taking the term 'sign' in this sense the spoken word is not the natural sign of any thing.
2: On Three Senses of 'Term'
The word 'term' has three senses. In one sense a term is anything which can be the copula or the extreme (i.e., subject or predicate) of a categorical proposition or some determination of the verb or extreme. In this sense even a proposition can be a term since it can be a part of a proposition. The following, for example, is true: ' "Man is an animal" is a true proposition'. Here, the whole proposition, 'Man is an animal', is the subject and 'true proposition', the predicate. In another sense 'term' is used in contrast with 'proposition', so that every simple expression is called a term. It was in this sense that I used the expression in the preceding chapter.
In a third and still narrower sense 'term' is used to mean that which, when taken significatively, is able to be the subject or the predicate of a proposition.
Using the expression in this sense it is incorrect to call verbs, conjunctions, adverbs, prepositions, and interjections terms. Even many names are not terms in this sense. Syncategorematic names are the case in point. Although they may be the extremes of a proposition when construed materially or simply, they cannot be when construed significatively. Thus, the sentence ' "Reads" is a verb' is well formed and true if 'reads' is construed materially; however, if we were to take the expression significatively, the proposition would make no sense. The same is true of the following propositions: ' "Every" is a name', ' "'Formerly" is an adverb', ' "If" is a conjunction', ' "From" is a preposition'. It is this sense of 'term' that Aristotle defines in the first book of the Prior Analytics.!
In this third sense of 'term' not only can one simple expression be a term, but even an expression composed of two simple expressions can be a term. Thus, the combination of an adjective and a noun and even the combination of a participle and an adverb or a preposition and its object can yield an expression that is in this sense correctly called a term, for a compound expression formed in one of these ways can be the subject or the predicate of a proposition. In the 1 24> 16-18.